"Wine is the only thing that makes us happy as adults for no reason," said the late cartoonist Saul Steinberg. That seems a good enough reason to keep drinking the stuff, but for some the pleasure principle is just not enough. And there has been much excitement this week following suggestions from scientists that red wine could help drinkers live longer. So go the headlines at any rate, although the list of caveats that follow is eye-wateringly long: not all of the red stuff but only some variants contain the necessary active ingredient, resveratrol; one would need to drink an awful lot to get the benefit (100 bottles a day, some studies say - by which time the treatment's drawbacks might also be apparent); and there is no conclusive evidence that it works on humans as well as lab mice. Extremely severe diets have also been shown to prolong rodent lives, but for some unfathomable reason journalists are less keen to tout their benefits. If it is not red wine's tonic properties being praised, it is characteristics so rarefied that they are typically described in gibberish ("a lot of bret at first but then perfume starts to come through and the tannins melt ..."). Enough. Red wine should not appeal to either head or heart but to the tongue. That is ample reason to treasure it; the Greek historian Thucydides knew as much when he observed that Mediterraneans "emerged from barbarism when they learned to cultivate the olive and the vine". Alternatively, ask mine host behind the bar for two large glasses of resveratrol. Cheers.